Egypt prime minister condemns attack on Copt wedding

Shooting outside Cairo church kills three, including 8-year-old girl

By AP 21 October 2013, 9:35 am

Edit

Egyptians gather at a Coptic Christian church in the Waraa neighborhood of Cairo late Sunday, Oct. 20, 2013 after gunmen on motorcycles opened fire, killing a woman and wounding several people. (AP Photo/Mohsen Nabil)

CAIRO — Egypt’s interim prime minister condemned an attack outside a Cairo Coptic church that killed three people, including an 8-year-old girl, pledging police would do everything possible to bring the perpetrators to justice.

Prime Minister Hazem el-Beblawi said in a statement on Monday that the attack on Sunday night was a “callous and criminal act.”

He said such attacks will “not succeed in sowing divisions between the nation’s Muslims and Christians.”

The attack took place in the Waraa neighborhood of the Egyptian capital, when masked gunmen on motorcycles opened fire on a wedding party outside a Coptic church, killing a man, a woman and the child.

Since a popularly-backed military coup ousted the country’s Islamist president in July, there have been stepped-up attacks against Egypt’s Coptic Christians and their churches.